Sunday, January 23, 2011

After reading what others have said about this book, I hazard to guess I liked it more than most. Yes, the protagonist was priggish and dense in some areas, and I was not surprised about that. Overall, though, I felt that this book represented some matrilineal pride and was about history - personal history and myths and intergenerational revisioning of history - not exact history or scholarship. It's a novel, after all. I felt the exploration of the subject matter compelling, no doubt because Katherine Howe claims genealogical ties to both Elizabeth Howe and Elizabeth Proctor. For feminist history on this subject, check out Devil in the Shape of a Woman. But for a good read, compelling and interesting, this book did well for me.